This Japanese Hi-Lux Gets An American Twist

Kousuke is the kind of guy we like here at Mini Truckin'. That's because he's a convert. You see, Kousuke used to drive a Honda-eww, I know. But, now he's a full-fledged minitrucker from Japan, where the import-car movement, or domestic in its case, is so huge. It's awesome to see Japan still popping out new minitruckers even with influences from movies such as The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

The scene in Japan is much smaller than in the United States. In Japan, you can only imagine the rarity of seeing a body-dropped and 'bagged mini cruising the streets. Every minitrucker out there dreams of cruising somewhere, maybe it's the Vegas Strip or a beach somewhere. But, to Kousuke, it was to cruise his hometown. When we asked him about it, this is what he said: "Kagoshima is very southern area of Japan, with lots of palm trees. It was my dream of cruisin' seaside with a cool minitruck."

Now that his truck is done, he gets to cruise it whenever he wants, and when he does he imagines himself cruising the West Coast in California. To accomplish this dream, however, was a long and hard road.

To start, he picked up a Toyota Hi-Lux, which is the Japanese version of a Tacoma. They look very similar but are completely different, and Kousuke wanted it to look more like a Taco than it already did. So, he decided to put a new face on his truck. He started out buying American Tacoma parts, but what he soon realized was that they didn't even come close to fitting. "Changing front face into Tacoma was much difficult than they thought first," Kousuke says. "Length of hood and fenders must be shortened; bumper must be shortened width-wise and extended at each side. Hinge of hood, wiper cowl was also different in shape."

So, basically, he learned he didn't have enough knowledge to do the job, and he had to learn the hard way. Eventually, after enough hours of work, they got it on and were pleased to have such a radical Tacoma in comparison to Japanese standards.

Now that Kousuke has had some time with his truck and got some well-needed cruising out of the way, you can definitely expect a rebuild. He plans on redoing the interior completely, repainting the body, and redoing the bed somehow. It's going to be really hard to top this build, but we can't wait to see what he comes up with next.